Why Oliver Stone Will Not Be a Happy Man this Weekend

Indeed, Goldman goes on to point out that to Stone and Kuznick, “Stalin…still comes off as heroic, as an honest negotiator who, following FDR’s death, was faced at every turn with Truman’s diplomatic perfidy.” Truman is to Stone and Kuznick, Goldman puts it, the “black hat” while the “white hats” belong to FDR, John F. Kennedy, and, most of all, “the man who inspired the whole project: Henry Wallace.”

Readers of my own article will find the real truth about Wallace, who, as I argue, was the very epitome of a communist dupe, a man who, if he had become president, would have enabled Stalin to fulfill his plans for takeover of Eastern Europe and perhaps even the Stalinization of the entire European continent.

What will really irk Stone and Kuznick, however, is that Goldman turns to me as an example of the sharp criticism Stone gets from those who know something about history. He writes the following:

While to his fans Stone’s alternate histories are provocative, his detractors see them as grossly irresponsible cherry-picking. The conservative historian and CUNY emeritus professor Ronald Radosh said he found himself wanting to do harm to his television while watching the first four episodes, which he reviewed for the right-wing Weekly Standard. Radosh had been blogging skeptically about the Stone project since its announcement in 2010, but now that he’d actually seen it, he said, it was the historian rather than the conservative in him who was most offended. “Historians can have different interpretations, but based on evidence,” he said. “What these other guys do is manipulate evidence and ignore evidence that does not fit their predetermined thesis, and that’s why they’re wrong.” According to Radosh, Stone and Kuznick’s take on the United States’ role in the cold war mirrors the argument in “We Can Be Friends,” a book published in 1952 by Carl Marzani, who was convicted of concealing his affiliation to the Communist Party when he joined the O.S.S., the precursor to the C.I.A. “This Stone-Kuznick film could have been put out in 1955 as Soviet propaganda,” Radosh said. “They use all the old stuff.”

Moreover, Goldman took my suggestion that Stone’s distortions of history were something that bona fide liberal historians who respect historical truth understand, and that he get in touch with Princeton University’s distinguished historian, Sean Wilentz. Wilentz had e-mailed me that Stone’s book was “misinformation” and that anyone with a respect for history knew it was trash. When Goldman spoke to Wilentz, he stuck to his guns. Goldman writes:

Radosh, who grew up as a Red Diaper baby in Washington Heights and only later turned to the right, thinks of himself as intimately familiar with the “old stuff.” But fearing he might be dismissed as partisan, he insisted I reach out to Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian who, owing to his strident defense of Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings and to his 2006 Rolling Stone cover article on George W. Bush, “The Worst President in History?” is regarded as decidedly left-leaning. When I spoke to him, Wilentz said: “You can’t get two historians more unlike each other than me and Ronnie Radosh. But we can agree about this. It’s ridiculous.” Wilentz was in the middle of writing a review of Stone’s book. “Always beware of books that describe themselves as the untold history of anything, because it’s usually been told before,” he said. “It sets up this thing that there is some sort of mysterious force suppressing the true facts, right? Glenn Beck does this all the time. It’s the same thing here, except this is basically a very standard left-wing, C.P., fellow traveler, Wallace-ite vision of what happened in 1945-46.” It’s not, Wilentz continued, that the questions raised aren’t worth raising. “Is there a legitimate argument to be made about the origins of our nuclear diplomacy or the decision to build the H-bomb?” he said. “Of course there is. But it’s so overloaded with ideological distortion that this question doesn’t get raised in an intelligent way. And once a question gets raised in an unintelligent way, then you are off in cloud-cuckoo land.”

55 Comments, 25 Threads

1.
rickl

This is the sort of thing that recently drove me to cancel my cable TV subscription.

For several years I have chosen not to support leftist actors and musicians with my money. I don’t see their movies, go to their concerts, or buy their albums. I largely stopped watching entertainment on TV.

On Election Night 2008, I quit watching TV news as well, including Fox. This meant that I no longer watched much TV at all, except for the occasional baseball game or old movie. Still, I kept my cable subscription, and a portion of my monthly bill went to support channels like Showtime, whether I watched them or not.

Last week I canceled my cable TV subscription and returned my converter boxes. I think the media needs to be punished for their perfidy.

I’ve kept cable only because my wife watches a variety of stuff, but I had long since reduced my viewing to only FOX, and since the election I have stopped watching FOX as well. I put up with their “main streaming” all year, but their leftward drift has become nauseating since the election. Other than PJ, RCP and Drudge I’ve dusted off my library card and started reading classic Lit and even classic SF, can’t think of a better way to try and get some use for my tax dollars.

You must live in one of the People’s Blue State Republics. It took my wife and I a week, well within the no fault rejection period in our state, to to conclude Direct TV is crap! The Library is an amazing place.

I love the sportws I get on cable TV. That is my biggest and most important reason for buying cable TV.

Of course, as a Mets and Jets fan some might suggest I buy cable to satisfy my need for humiliation but that is another story.

On a serious note, nonsense is taken seriously by the untutored and this hoax as history will have an impact. To this day many, many college educated people think Howeard Zinn has something meaningful to say in his books. And how many of us live on ‘Planet Chomsky’ ?

Some people just like to see the world burn and this will contribute to the conflagration.

Yes, a pig and a whore. Ditto his son, the apple falls right alongside the decrepit tree.

And as part of the revolutionary left, he/they must be held to account. But the ONLY way to do so is to smack them down at the box office, and at video stores too. These miscreants, deviants too, suckle off the support of the public. So in no small measure, those who support them become complicit too. Consumers do have choices.

The revolutionary left seeks to upend America at its roots, but make no mistake, the likes of Stone expect to get away unscathed.

It’s quite simple, really. Hippies supporting other hippies. Their ideas sucked in 1966 and they still suck now. They hated being told that in 1966 and, lo and behold, they still hate being told.

Interestingly, when told by other leftists though, it raises their hackles. Nothing worse than a whining socialist. Makes everyone think there’s a Frenchman in the room. *sigh* Or, should I say “Parisian”?

But seriously, these altnerative-lifestyle types have taken their hogwash so seriously for over half a century, they cannot fathom being wrong about, well, anything. Surrounded by fellow-travlers, they have insulated themselves against reality. In Stone(d)’s case, he does it, as do many committed leftists, with money. Errand-boys, go-fers and people who do the day-to-day for them so they don’t have to mingle with the real people. It has a curious effect. Most of Hollywood is like that anyhow. Elitism…altruism. IOW, snobs.

The Men must have belittled this non-hacking whiner so much during his “tour” that he had a nervous breakdown….and he’s spent the rest of his life re-telling an alternate story (excuse) of how THE WHOLE WESTERN WORLD conspired to make him a physical coward….in the most intellectual way, of course, with “film”

When we Young Marines were asked breathlessly by the “intelligent” women we were banging, who agonized over our profession, almost pleadingly saying “but didnt you see Platoon?”

We all had the same reply…

“yeah…I LIKED Barnes…I’m GLAD he killed Elias”

Suffice to say, Stone and his hyper-pussified-whine-and-cry-fest blame-games were old even when they were new.

In strict Military Parlance, an “Oliver Stone” in your unit is carried on the Table of Organization as a:

Hole, ass (1) ea.

Spoken by True Patriots throughout his “career” as:
“That Oliver Stone guy is a Hole, Comma Ass, One Each”

While it is true that the winners write the histories – in which the winners are never the bad guys – re-writing history to support a specific ideology is nothing but outright, in your face, propaganda.

Now they just need to go after those new “history” series on basic cable. The Story or Us, or whatever one of them is called. They are all revisionist histories from a leftist perspective. They’ve been so bad that I couldn’t watch beyond and episode or two.

Saw a clip of Stone’s show. Seemed oddly familiar. It’s the same crap Gore Vidal pushed all his life. It’s a re-run of a re-run of a re-run. To the left, history is a sitcom on endless repeat. But without a laugh-track. Now if only Stone would transfer the laugh-track from “Natural Born Killers,” onto “JFK,” he will have finally made a decent movie.

If you ignore his hubris and the simple fact that his work should ALWAYS be viewed as fiction, he can be at least entertaining.

JFK was a fun as heck movie. Stone managed to wedge as many conspiracy theories into one story line as possible. Even some of the “theories” that Stone made up just as a function of the script have taken hold among the conspiracy nuts.

I got to always give him credit for JFK. Its got a great script, terrific cast, and wonderful pacing. His other stuff…no.

I actually watched an episode of this show and it was definitely NOT entertaining. In fact, my first reaction to the show was… boredom; sheer, utter boredom. The narrator had a very monotone delivery, and the show itself had a slow pacing that didn’t help. I thought my anger over the material would have forced me to stop watching, but in the end I was so bored I dozed off. That, in my opinion, is probably a better indicator of the quality of this show.

According to Stone and he’s revisionist buddy the Marshall plan was also part of an egregious attempt at anti-soviet propaganda. Problem with that theory is Titos acceptance of aid under the Marshall plan even though he was criticised for it by the soviets, the then Yugoslavia still remained communist until the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe( so much for propoganda and nefarious political influence).The Marshall plan was probably one of the most significantly altruistic acts in western history it’s importance and the benefits it produced cannot be overstated. I suppose the Americans also tricked the soviets into an arms race, the soviets possessing an economy the size of Holland(unable to produce washing machines and automobiles of any significance) we all know how that turned out.
Stone should be ashamed of he attempt to blacken the name of great man like George Marshall, if you read the ‘Devine Comedy’ their is a special place in Hell for all false accusers.

I only saw a few minutes of one of the episodes and was horrified. At the end of the war in Europe after Germany was defeated in 1945, Stone pretty much made the point that the Soviet Union was the major reason why the Allies won and that if it wasn’t for the Soviet Union the Allies probably would not have won. Britain was barely even mentioned as a participant in the war. I turned the channel right after that. Anybody who minimizes the contributions the United States and Britain made during World War II to that extent is not interested in serious history. Stone made it seem like the United States and Britain were just minor players in the war and that the Soviets were the major reason why the Allies won. I get a lot more honest television viewing by watching the Food Channel. Ugh.

I have not seen the program in question, as I avoid anything that has Stone’s name attached to it in any capacity. I can certainly imagine that he must have lavished fawning praise on the USSR and downplayed the Anglo-American contribution to the war. That said, it must also be said that in fact the Soviet Union was the major reason that the Germans lost the war. The USSR had somewhere in the neighborhood of 9-10 million military KIA, while the US and UK had around 750k combined. Many people also overlook the contribution China made, as they lost 3-4 million military KIA. The civilian suffering in China and the USSR was even greater than that, although it is hard to sort out what was self-inflicted by Stalin, and the civil war in China’s case.
I certainly have no intention of making light of the American and British contributions to the war, as my grandfathers both served during the war. However, any bloviation by Oliver Stone aside, it is difficult to see how Nazi Germany could have been defeated without the USSR. Certainly Britain lacked the power, and it would be difficult to see how even with American help they could have invaded a European continent in which the German Eastern front was not only secure, but supplying massive amounts of oil and food to the German war effort, as was the case prior to June, 1941.
The UK and especially the US made an enormous contribution to the war in material terms, and in the attrition of the German industrial base with their round the clock bombing campaigns (exactly how effective it was remains contentious), but make no mistake about it, the ultimate fate of the War in Europe was decided in the space between Berlin and Moscow.

” . . . but make no mistake about it, the ultimate fate of the War in Europe was decided in the space between Berlin and Moscow.” Maybe! Mr Stone you are welcome to your opinion. The diversion of equipment and manpower to just guard the “Western Wall” was enormous. North Africa? Italy? If Hitler didn’t have to contend with those, what would the outcome of the Russian campaign been?

That was not written by Mr. Stone, that was written by me, and it is a pretty well established interpretation of the Second World War. Don’t take my word for it; I would suggest reading an oldy but goody entitled “The Last European War” by John Lukacs. Lukacs has never been confused with a Soviet apologist, often being labeled as “conservative” and self-identifying as “reactionary”. Please do not confuse the making of an historical interpretation based on certain irrefutable facts on my part to be either a defense of Oliver Stone (I have already stated my detestation of the man and his message) or even less so an attempt to give the USSR some sort of moral authority. The USSR was one of the greatest abominations in the history of humanity (especially in its Stalinist iterration), that does not change the fact that the Second World War was decided in the East. In June, 1941, Hitler was the complete master of Europe. His non-aggression pact with Stalin guaranteed a steady supply of vital raw materials to the German military and industry. Minus the war in the East, it is inconcievable that the British or even the British plus Americans could have invaded continental Europe. The argument that the USSR would have collapsed without UK and US material support is not without merit either, but it took nearly 10 million KIA to drive the Germans back to Berlin. I seriously doubt that a free, democratic republic like the USA would have been able to sustain such losses and remained in the war. Britain didn’t even have the manpower to try.

I must quickly point something out: Russia didn’t lose 10 million in combat.

To begin with, consider the Russian military ‘machine’. It produced the most poorly equipped soldiers in World War II: some of the most undertrained, and was more than willing to butcher their own men for showing ‘cowardice’ (as determined by well-armed, decently equipped, comissars). Look at the battle across the volga river and into (I believe, though I may have the city wrong) Leningrad; 500K lost in one fight! Many lost due to being COMPLETELY without a weapon and forced to charge at the nazis! Many Russian losses were due to insufficient cold weather gear, insufficient food, fights they picked with locals, and the brutality of their own party commissars. So no, I don’t accept that they were an essential part of it. China, perhaps, but Russia? Probably not.

Stone hasn’t really thought this one out. Yes the Soviets did the lion’s share when it came to killing Nazis. So why would the allies, really I’m talking about the Americans, devote more resources than they absolutely had to? It’s not like you can pluck a division off a tree. America did virtually 100% of the fighting in the Pacific too.

Also, the Allies wittled down Nazi air-power, and that made a huge difference in those flat battlefields of the SU and E. Europe. The allies (America) also gave the SU an enormous quantity of materiel and pinned down German resources that could’ve been used in the SU.

So, the SU was the major reason the Nazis were defeated, but that’s more because of how that war played out. The Soviets were halting the Germans in front of Moscow at the time we’d just declared war. The Americans were just getting their feet wet at Guadalcanal and the Allies had only just started a minimal bombing campaign by the time Stalingrad started.

But if the Germans had knocked the SU out of the war, say in early ’42, I still think the Allies would’ve brought whatever pressure to bear it would take to defeat the Nazis. But without the SU on one side scooping up 25 German divisions at a time, like in Estonia-Latvia, occupying Germany would’ve been a tough row to hoe for the Allies.

I thought I’d read somewhere once that America had something like 12 or 15 million people in the armed forces when the war ended, most of them yet to be deployed, and that the SU was nearing the end of their manpower at that time, using women as soldiers.

It must be understood that the quality of your troops need only be “good enough”. I would concede that the Japanese and the Germans were slightly better soldiers. But that was really their problem. The Japanese were so rabidly fatalistic and the Germans so militaristic that they would never question orders or consider “the big picture.” Japan’s grand war strategy amounted to one gigantic Banzai charge, where “100 million die as one,” if necessary. When push came to shove at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Leyte Gulf, Anzio, Normandy or Bastogne, we showed we were more than “good enough.”

But as the saying goes, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. Concentration of force at the point of attack; get there the fastest with the mostest. Once in it, there was no way we were going to lose that war.

In 1935, Japan produced 36,000 cars. I can’t find good, hard, total numbers for Germany that year, but it looks like their biggest manufacturer produced 130,000. America produced 2 million cars that year. That’s an order of magnitude greater than our two enemies combined. Throw in a real tactical or strategic innovator like a Patton or a Nimitz, and that’s just the icing on the cake.

The Pacific especially played to our strengths. Japan’s island empire needed a lot of ships, warfighting and merchant, and the Japanese had no plan for quickly exploiting the resources they’d conquered. At the beginning, they had a few more carriers which (along with the submarines) were the most important weapons of that theater. By the end, they had none, we had 30 or 40 fleet and medium size carriers. In the Pacific. That’s not counting the Jeep carriers in the Atlantic that helped beat down the U-boat wolfpacks. And our ever-increasing submarine fleet had sunk most of Japan’s merchant marine, while we were never once seriously threatened in any way.

He’s right – sorta. I think that ultimately, even without each other’s help, either the Soviets or the Western allies could have out-produced and out-fought the Nazis. It would have taken longer and cost more men and materiel. It’s possible that the Nazis could have outlasted America politically and morally – we’re free to throw in the towel when a war goes on too long. I doubt they could have outlasted the Soviets, who seemed prepared to sacrifice everything (any number of citizens) in order to win. At the very least, Germany would have run out of Germans long before America ran out of Americans or the Soviet Union ran out of Soviets.

As it was, we were able to divide Germany and conquer. I’m not sure it matters who killed more Germans or who lost more soldiers. What matters is that every German killed in Russia was a German we and the Brits didn’t have to kill in France – and vice versa.

I happily concede that the Soviets did most of the killing and dying in WWII. I can only wish they had done even more of the latter. (I still think that it would have been better to sit Europe out at least until those two ripped each other to shreds, which, in effect was what we did.) The Soviets lost a lot of people because it was war policy to lose a lot of people. Stalin’s idea of “How to clear a mine field” was to march a division through it. That tends to jack up the casualty numbers. If it had not been for Lend Lease, Moscow would have fallen, though whether that would have really meant anything is another matter. The Russians were so thunderingly inept and technologically backwards that, objectively, the Germans merited the win.

When it came to the Jews, the Germans did the murdering, not the Soviets. Even as they were losing the war, the krauts were busy murdering every Jewish man, woman, and child they could find. When the Allies, including the Soviets finally put forced the Germans into unconditional surrender, the only Jews left were the ones in the holding pens that the Germans hadn’t had time to murder yet.

So, while people like you, herr langenbach, breezily wish the Soviets had done more dying, people like me are grateful that somebody was able to put an end to the Germans and their orgy of extermination.

The Soviet citizenry suffered a staggering number of deaths defending themselves against the genocidal German invaders, and ultimately helped the Allies in their goal of ridding Europe of the German menace for good. And yet, your only take is that you wish more would have died.

The Soviets lost a lot of people because they were a brutal people. They didn’t give half a damn about the jews being killed, just like the leadership didn’t care about their soldiers beyond the propaganda value of certain special individuals. As he said, they were more than willing to butcher whole divisions, and their leaders were more than happy to shoot them for fleeing impossible odds.
A butcher is a butcher, no matter how good or ill his intentions.

I have as much respect for Oliver Stone as I do for Michael Moore. That is to say, zero respect.

Years ago I sent an email to our local CBS affiliate over the Letterman comments concerning Palin’s daughter. I let them know that as long as Letterman was on their programming schedule I would not watch their channel. Then, I deprogrammed the CBS affiliate from my converter box. I don’t miss CBS, or TV in general at all.

My history, I get that from reading pre-1900s literature. Reading ‘modern scholarship’ is like infecting yourself with some socially transmitted disease. Indulging individuals like Stone is like going back for another dose of the clap.

I check out a ton of DVDs from the library. Mostly documentaries, SF and such. My television watching is pretty much limited to football. Factual news, I get that from the internet, using such sites as this one. Oh, and conservative talk radio.

I recently sent back my Neielsen survey results of my TV viewing habits. Let us say it was pretty barren. Except for the comments section. They didn’t give me enough room for what I thought about the television industry. So, I just printed out a couple of pages of thoughts and sent them along. Like it will do any good. I’m pretty sure I will not be ‘re-invited’ to contribute to any more of their surveys.

I have found one way to fight the liberalism infecting libraries. Whenever I see a new DVD or book by one of the usual liberal suspects I try and find three new items by conservatives to suggest to the acquisition department. It gets the counterargument into the library and makes sure there is less money for the library to spend on liberal trash.

The series also demonstrates the links between the entertainment and academic complexes. Even with his clout Stone may not have been able to get this on Showtime without a collaborative endorsement from academia. In Kuznick, he has a respected historian at a prestigious school and who is within today’s academic mainstream (sadly enought) willing to be the validator. In return, Kuznick gets publicity for his theories, prestige, popular attention and (I assume) a nice chunk of change$.

Good grief…Oliver Stone is still alive…I thought he had died of a self inflicted drug overdose after finding out he had incurable STDs…..wow…still alive and still trying to figure out how to make honest good movies…what a shame…such a talent gone to waste…..

Was watching TV and happened on this and was listening to Stones version of Truman and the treatment of Soviets after Roosevelt died. Being fairly educated on history I could not believe the adoring editing for Stalin. My jaw dropped and said to my husband, I wonder who made this fantasy. Sure enough, Stone. Thank God kids only get their information from the propaganda arm of left in school. Fits in with Stones fantasy. Communists have been infiltrating America since Alger Hiss and Senator McCarthy was right they were in Executive Branch and State Department as Nixon discovered through Witichar Chambers. That is why the left/liberals hate Nixon and McCarthy, rewriting history. And by the way the investigation of Hollywood did find communist sympathizers but that was not McCarthy it was the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HUAC, House of UnAmerican Activity Committee. Even Woody Allen made an attack piece on McCarthy, he was WRONG. But remains a far left Hollywood celebrity. See today being un-American and pro-communism is the NEW normal in America pop culture.

The long view matters. Hitler turned east to Russia after he failed to invade England, just as Napoleon did, and with the same disastrous results. As John Lukacs said of Churchill, he did not win the war, but he kept the Allies from losing it.

Hit them in their wallets . That is the ultimate wake up for Democratic / Liberal
America sellouts .
I hear Santa is going on a 4 million dollar tax payer funded vacation to Hawaii . Nice gesture of him and Michelle since we are 16 trillion dollars in debt. Who else on the Planet spends 4 million dollars on a vacation?
Absolute arrogance and hypocricy the “D” party mantra.